&#8216;Heroes' writers get the ax

Two top writers for "Heroes" have been fired. Co-executive producers Jeph Loeb and Jesse Alexander, both of whom ran the show on a day-to-day basis, according to the Variety story breaking the news, were let go.

"It's understood that Alexander and Loeb were let go because of Peacock execs' frustration with the creative direction of the show," Variety's Cynthia Littleton wrote. The show was also enduring cost overruns, according to the story.

As the L.A. Times' Geoff Boucher wrote in a Showtracker blog post on the news, "The show that was once NBC's strongest scripted series really lost its way, and a lot of casual fans just threw their hands up in the air and reached for the remote."

I can't say that I ever thought "Heroes" was NBC's strongest scripted series, but it's certainly, at this point, NBC's biggest missed opportunity. The network has fired nothing but blanks in terms of new shows this fall, and it's not as though it had a lot of hits in its arsenal. The fact that this one was allowed to get so bad without someone at the network stepping in to fix the mess is just one more indication of how much disarray exists at the Peacock network these days.

I gave up on "Heroes" a few weeks ago, and short of the network and studio bringing on someone whose talent and resume I really respect, I can't see myself getting back on that particular horse. When the good stuff outweighs the bad stuff by a 5 to 1 ratio, as it has on "Heroes" for two seasons now, it's my bad if I don't know when to walk away.

What's completely frustrating to me is that it has never seemed like it would be that difficult to fix the show. It's a popcorn serial, and I'd bet there are dozens of writers in L.A. with the chops to make this show work. Haven't you, as a fan, come up with at least five ways to fix the show, as EW recently did?

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